CLEVELAND, Ohio – Cuyahoga County's new headquarters is now open for business.

County officials on Tuesday afternoon held an opening ceremony for the eight-story, 220,000 square-foot building. It replaces the county's former headquarters, which was demolished earlier this year to make way for a planned convention center hotel.

County Executive Ed FitzGerald highlighted the new headquarters' location: the former Ameritrust complex, which was among the subjects of the 2007 corruption investigation that foreshadowed the county government reform approved by voters in 2010.

"We took a symbol of corruption and made it into a symbol of good government," said FitzGerald in a speech to media members, county employees and others who gathered near the building's entrance at East 9th Street and Prospect Avenue.

The county's new eight-story headquarters cost roughly $80 million.

The county's budgeted, out-of-pocket share of the project is $25 million. The rest of the costs were covered up front by private developer Geis Co., which owns and operates the building. But the county will help cover the construction by making escalating, annual lease payments, starting at around $6 million, for the next 27 years. The county will have an option to buy the building for $1 at the end of its lease.

The new headquarters is a central component to the county's ongoing real estate consolidation project, in which county officials are seeking to downsize the dozens of properties the county leases and owns.

A consultant has said the county could save $84 million over 20 years by consolidating operations and buying dedicated storage facilities. The new headquarters will house over 600 county employees and about two dozen county agencies and departments.

County commissioners under the previous county government wasted millions by buying the former Ameritrust complex in 2005 and removing asbestos, only to abandon the site two years later after determining it was unsuitable for county use. FitzGerald recently sued parties involved with purchase, alleging corruption permeated the ill-fated deal.

County officials also said the new headquarters, along with an planned adjacent Geis-led mixed-use development that will include hotels, luxury apartments and a new Heinen's grocery store planned for the historic Ameritrust rotunda, will help enliven an area that was once a focal point of downtown.

"From our perspective, the county helped generate a $275 million investment," said Joe Marinucci, CEO and president of the Downtown Cleveland Alliance.

Council President C. Ellen Connally said: "The vitality this building brings to the downtown area is just another step in moving our community forward."

Bonnie Teeuwen, the county's public works director, led media members on a tour of the building earlier Tuesday. Among the new headquarters' features: County Council's new chambers on the fourth floor have ample windows that bathe the room in natural light.

"It was important to our designers that our new form of government have plenty of transparency from the inside out to the outside in," Teeuwen said.

The building has a an environmentally friendly design, including an 8,000 square-foot 'green' roof and automated lighting that adjusts to natural lighting levels, according to county officials.

Although the building was opened to the public Tuesday for an open house, it's not yet fully operational. County offices will move into the building on a staggered basis over the coming weeks.

Among the first agencies to move in: the public works department and the inspector general's office, which will be operational on Thursday. The last office, the new county council chambers, will open on Aug. 12.

The new building helps turn the page on the former county government, which was tainted by corruption, county officials said. One of the first county offices to move in, the public works department, will vacate the Stonebridge complex, where the county leased space in a deal implicated in the corruption probe.

Two former county employees received cash bribes to get what was then called the county engineer's office moved to Stonebridge in 2003. Then-Commissioner Jimmy Dimora in turn received some of that money in the form of unspecified "personal services" and thousands of dollars in chauffeured limousine services for his family. The bribes were meant in part to influence Dimora to resist moving the engineer's office to a planned central county headquarters, according to prosecutors.

"If you think about what this community has been through just on the county government side over the last few years ... you've gone from really the deepest depths of what county government can go to what you see behind me," FitzGerald said, directing to the new headquarters. "Which is really the height of integrity and efficiency and economy and understanding that our mission is to serve the public."

An earlier version of this story incorrectly stated the building's overall cost is $115 million.

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